Rob Gronkowski is ready to return to football. It won’t be with the Patriots.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported the All-Pro tight end, who retired before the 2019 season, is set to make his NFL comeback. That means pairing him back up with the quarterback responsible for 90 of his 91 career receiving touchdowns: Tampa Bay Buccaneer Tom Brady.
Sources: Retired #Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski has told New England that he’s interested in playing football again — and would want to do it with the #Bucs and QB Tom Brady. A trade would have to be worked out for this to happen.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 21, 2020
Per reports, New England and Tampa Bay have agreed on a deal to send the future Hall of Famer to Florida:
Patriots send: Rob Gronkowski and a seventh-round pick
Buccaneers send: a fourth-round pick
With Gronkowski having passed a pre-trade physical, the deal is only a league announcement away from becoming official.
Gronkowski would provide additional firepower for a passing offense already headed by one of the league’s top tandems in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. He would help ease Brady’s transition from his first NFL non-Patriots offense and provide a valuable, occasionally unstoppable target up the seams.
Did the Patriots get enough in exchange for a player they’d already written off?
Since the high-impact tight end still has one year and $10 million remaining on his contract with New England, any Tampa Bay comeback story had to begin with a trade. While this swap helps boost an already-robust lineup of mid-round assets for Bill Belichick, it doesn’t necessarily fix any of his biggest problems.
The Patriots probably won’t be able to draft their Brady successor with Tampa’s fourth-round pick. It also likely won’t be enough of a pot sweetener to move up the draft board to select a targeted passer in Rounds 1 or 2. Instead, it’s a developmental choice in a slot where the longtime head coach has spun hay into gold in years passed.
That pick could help the club find the Gronkowski replacement it longed for in 2019. New England’s top three tight ends combined for 36 catches and 418 yards last fall, leaving a gaping hole in the offense. The Patriots weren’t interested in acquiring former first-round pick O.J. Howard — who had 34 catches for 565 yards (at a 71 percent catch rate) in 10 games in 2018 but ended up on the Bucs’ trading block after being benched in 2019. That either suggests the team’s happy with this year’s deep, but not top-heavy group of rookie TEs, or that it has no interest in Howard.
Getting Gronkowski back in 2020 would have been a boon for the Patriots, but his previous unwillingness to play out the end of his career without Brady means it was unlikely he’d ever play again for New England. Only getting a fourth-rounder back for an All-Decade tight end (and a seventh-rounder) may feel like a disappointing return. But when you consider Belichick was able to get an early Day 3 pick in exchange for a player he had no plans of playing for him, it’s not such a bad deal after all.
What can a post-retirement Gronkowski bring to the Buccaneers?
It’s tough to project what Gronk would be capable of in his age-31 season. His 14.5 yards per catch and 9.5 yards per target in 2018 were his lowest marks since 2015. His 52.5 yards per game were the least he’d averaged since his rookie year. It was a slightly-above average year for a starting tight end.
A closer look shows he remained a trusted and dependable target for Brady in massive moments. Two of his five games with 60+ receiving yards that season came in the playoffs. His 25-yard catch on third-and-5 late in the fourth quarter was instrumental to the Patriots’ win over the Chiefs in the AFC title game. His 29-yard fourth-quarter catch amidst triple coverage in Super Bowl 53 set up that game’s only touchdown:
Gronk did all that even at the end of a season where he’d fought off nagging injuries that eventually turned his thoughts to retirement. Now he’ll get the chance to prove a year of rest, rehabilitation, and rasslin’ (he hosted Wrestlemania in April, winning the WWE 24/7 championship in the process) have put a spring back in his step.
It’s also important to note those 2018 numbers came alongside wideouts like Julian Edelman, 11 games of Josh Gordon, Chris Hogan, and Phillip Dorsett. In 2020 he’d be playing next to Evans and Godwin, each of whom are good enough to take double-teams off Gronkowski’s plate on their own.
The result could be a renaissance year for Gronkowski and a clearer path for Brady to guide Tampa Bay back to the postseason. Adding a well-rested All-Pro tight end to one of the league’s most dangerous receiving corps could make the Bucs’ aerial attack an all-you-can-eat buffet. The question now is whether a swap of Day 3 picks was enough of a cover charge for the Buccaneers to set their table.
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